The .wav
and DSD files are produced directly from the
analogue mastertape of this sommelier du son-LP. The
cover shows the monastery's refectory where the
recording was captured.

The fact that my analog loving wife and I own and
operate a record label, sommelier du son
(www.sds-rpm.com), is well known to readers of hifistatment; alas, we realize that this may still
be very new to our friends at Positive Feedback. So
yes, we still make all analog records; unlike many
of today's reissue labels, we specialize in
recording well known contemporary artists all in the
analog domain of course. Mastering from our all
analog, Studer sourced material, is kept to a bare
minimum—it is all about the sound quality after
all—so that you, our reader, may experience these
recordings as close to live as possible.

Michel
Godard, serpent and Gavino Murgia, saxophone

Making all analog 24 track recordings—not to
mention 96 track (!)—in today's day and age would
simply be prohibitively expensive. The tape cost
alone, based on our production values, would run at
around $400 for just 15 minutes of 30ips recording
time; whereas you typically wouldn't sell more then
1000 or 2000 copies of any given title. Thus it
becomes practically impossible to capture live
multi-track recordings. But, as was the case when
The Beatles roamed the air waves, clever tricks like
finding the right balance between mic feeds and then
panning them into 2-tracks is something we
definitely can do. Even so, the drawbacks are quite
substantial: the slightest of mistakes by either the
performers or recording engineer are forever
captured onto tape, with no way of correcting any
mistakes.

Steve
Swallow, amplified acoustic bass-guitar

Our latest album Soyeusement – Live at Noirlac
(sds 0015-1) which we recorded last year in June,
can be described in the following adrenalin junky
manner: in the highly reverberant refectory of the
monastery of Noirlac, in the heart of France, we
captured the American electric-bass-legend Steve
Swallow, Europe's leading tuba player Michel Godard
and Gavino Murgia, a saxophone player and singer
from Sardinia onto, you guessed it—tape. In the
days leading up to the event, these Jazz legends and
three of their colleagues (who feel more familiar
with baroque music), had made recordings for a CD
release with melodies of Monteverdi that had been
subsequently edited quite heavily. During the
evening of the last recording day, the atmosphere
was much more relaxed. Michel Godard and his friends
were accompanied by Bruno Helstroffer on the orbo, a
kind of lute, and Fanny Paccoud on violin and
together they fell into this kind of irresistible
baroque groove jam. Michel is heard playing a
serpert, a medieval bass instrument on most of the
songs. During the recording process and the
minimalist mastering, no artificial reverb was used:
what you hear is nothing but the acoustics of the
room where the recording has been made.

Bruno Helstroffer, the orbo

One of the nicest melodies on Soyeusement is
"Trace of Grace". I personally chose this one for
you and copied it from the analog master tape to a Nagra LB and Tascam DV-RA1000D. The Nagra converted
the song to a 24 bit 192 kHz file that had been
normalized on an iMac using SonicStudios mastering
software soundBlade. In case your DAC only accepts
files in CD quality, I converted the song to 16/44
using soundBlade's sample rate converter. The Tascam
converted the music to a DSD file, that hat been
trimmed at the beginning and the end using Korg's
AudioGate. Positive Feedback Online and
hifistatement.net hope that you enjoy the tracks—either comparing the three formats or just
listening to this piece of great music!